“A man’s best fortune, or his worst, is a wife.”--_English
Proverb._
The telephone bell rang at eight in the morning, and if Ally were so
disagreeable as to grunt and turn over on the other side, Chum used
to get up and go to it herself. She was usually aggravated by the man
at Maitso Exchange demanding of her if she were there, and then no
further communication. He was the Hub of the Port Victorian Universe,
and had become autocratic through bitterness of spirit; therefore he
thought it just retribution to make sure beforehand that all the usual
communication points were in working order before he actually had to
connect them.
All the gossip of Key Island goes through the telephone, which is
as inappropriate to Port Victoria as her electric light. It is the
alternative for a post too, for the Planters, living some three miles
out, have no other means of communication, and it is very much safer
to make your own business arrangements with a fellow at Maitso or
Mitsinjovy, or to order more soda-water from Van Buren’s Stores, than
trust to a letter, even if you are only a mile from the post-office.
When the Lewin Bungalow was connected, Chum usually found herself
besieged with friendly enquiries as to how she was, and how Ally Sloper
was, and a little conversation ensued that was as strictly unofficial
as all Key’land characteristics. She only resented it on Sunday, when
English habit still clung to her and made her feel injured for lack of
an extra half-hour in bed, but as Ally took more rousing than the time
spent at the telephone, it generally ended in Mrs. Lewin walking into
the dining-room bare-foot, yawning delightfully, and a wasted vision of
beauty in _déshabille_, since the personality at the other end of the
communication tube was only a voice.
“Well, who are you?” she said sleepily.
“...!”
“Oh! well, Ally’s asleep still--I should say he was in rude health,
unless that suggests a liver!”
“...?”
“Am I ever anything else! And you saw me yesterday.”
“...!”
“Oh, the day before, was it? I’m sorry I forgot!”
“...”
“If you are sentimental through the telephone, I shall ring off!”
“...”
“No; really? We hadn’t heard because we couldn’t go to the Gilderoys.”
“...”
“Oh, they did, did they! People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Who lost their way back from the Rano Valley the other night, eh,
Captain Nugent?”
“...?”
“Oh, some one told me--I forget who.”
“...!”
“Isn’t it true? Well, you needn’t be so tragic over it!”
“...?”
“Yes, we shall come to church like good Christians. I’m going to ride
Liscarton. By the way, when do you want him back?”
“...”
“Don’t you think pretty speeches are rather wasted on a married woman?”
“...”
“Perhaps you are keeping your hand in!”
“...”
“I can’t listen to any more--I’m too sleepy. Good-bye!--Ring off,
please!”
At breakfast she said, “Ally, we lost a joke by not going to the
Gilderoys. The Denver girl and Mr. Gurney went into the garden to
find a ping-pong ball, and wandered on to the next door stoep by
mistake (?), and didn’t turn up till midnight. Can’t you fancy Captain
Gilderoy’s state of mind when he had to go out and look for them with a
lantern?”
“With Mrs. Gilderoy making her brisk little comments in the background!
She has a dangerous tongue, that woman. Won’t she give a fine version
of the tale all round Maitso! Who told you, Chum?”
“Brissy--on the ’phone. He said a lot of pretty things to me too.
That’s what you get by leaving your wife to attend to the thing! I
couldn’t really hear,” she added candidly, “but I could gather that he
simpered, so I laughed too. It’s generally safe to laugh!”
“I shall have to cane Brissy one of these days!” said Alaric,
stretching out a shapely hand for the guava jelly. He had beautiful
hands, and Chum noted them for the hundredth time as he did it. She
always thought that they would have better suited a doctor than a
soldier. “Are we going to church, Chum?” he said.
“Yes, I promised the Churtons yesterday. They want us to lunch there.
We can ride up after service, can’t we?”
“If you like. I suppose as it is Sunday there will be no Bridge--awful
bore, isn’t it?”
“If you think Sunday will warn Major Churton off his Bridge, you don’t
realise the man. I like the Major, Ally.”
“He’s a decent chap. His wife’s the better horse, I expect.”
“I don’t think so. He looks like a man who would be any woman’s master.
If you notice, when he says No! even Di Churton can’t say Yes!”
Ally laughed a little shortly, as if at some checked reminiscence. He
changed the subject too, rather briefly.
“Doesn’t Brissy want his pony back?”
“He said not. I wish you would buy Liscarton, Ally; I have grown to
like him.”
It was part of her adaptability that she could really earnestly
desire the little Key’land pony, and enjoy his paces, after riding
thoroughbred hunters and hacks that made other riders in the county
envious. Leoline Lewin lived in her present, as she had said to Halton,
and the chestnut pony had become the simple object of her equestrian
ambition out in Key Island.
“There are lots better ponies,” said Ally.
“Never mind! I like Liscarton.”
“I don’t think Brissy would sell.”
“He’s very good-natured,” said Chum adroitly. She made no reference to
the probable influence of her own wishes upon Captain Nugent.
“Well--I’ll see.” Ally rose and stretched himself, walking off to his
dressing-room with shoulders square, while Chum admired him as usual.
He came out later immaculate in white breeches and linen coat, and
seriously considered the problem as to whether he should wear a Panama
hat or a white helmet, until his wife decided in favour of the Panama.
“I don’t like helmets out of uniform,” she said, looking over his
shoulder at his good looks reflected in a hanging glass, with kindly
pride. “And you are just as smart in the straw. Don’t titivate any
more, old fellow, or I shall think it is for Di Churton, and have to
make a dead set for the Major to balance things.”
Ally laughed a little self-consciously. There was more in Chum’s speech
than she knew--more than had been said at present. When the male
animal is being flattered with attentions from the female, he may not
glance at her with half an eye; but he begins to plume himself. Alaric
glanced appreciatively at his wife’s figure as Liscarton carried her
to church by his side, and thought vaguely that she was a heap better
looking than any other woman out there, and that they made rather a
handsome couple. Then he thought that Chum reflected credit on his
own taste, and then he remembered with some very private satisfaction
that Di Churton had made a determined show of preference for him from
the first. He did not really admire Mrs. Churton, save that he could
recognize the swing of her own self-assertion in her position; he never
thought of comparing her with Leoline in a single detail. But Alaric
Lewin was as easily flattered as a child, and singularly manageable for
a really handsome man.
The English church at Port Victoria stands a little above the town,
towards Maitso. It is singularly like an enormous caravan, with six
stumpy legs in place of wheels, and worshippers go up a flight of
wooden steps to reach its barn-like interior. Most buildings in Key
Island are raised above the ground for fear of snakes, but the church
and the native huts have wooden props rather than a solid foundation.
There being no church at Maitso, or as yet at Mitsinjovy, the men
were marched down to service by aggrieved and sweating subalterns, or
a senior officer, and given as much room as could be spared from the
civilians. Truth to tell, the military force had to take it in turns to
be religious, service being held in barracks, by the chaplain, for the
Wessex, when the Gunners came down to Port Victoria, and _vice versâ_.
On this particular Sunday Captain Nugent and Mr. Gurney were bucketing
their men into the pews when the Lewins rode up to the churchyard.
Their sais had preceded them and took the ponies, hitching them up
to the railings in the shade with native indifference, and dropping
lazily on the grass to slumber away service time. Chum walked up the
steps and into church in the wake of the soldiers, and sat down in her
seat, drawing her habit round her and feeling the whole thing horribly
unreal. Through the wide flung shutters she could see palm-trees waving
tuftily in a splash of blue sky, and a gorgeous hibiscus had thrust
a flame of blossom in at one aperture which was seldom closed. There
was nothing to prevent the flowers coming to church, or the wild green
things outside either, for the only glass in the place was the East
window--a horrid picture of the Ascension, so quaintly designed that
the figure of the Christ was cut off at the waist, the feet in red
slippers hanging down into the picture, the rest of the body out of
sight. Chum was always fascinated by that window, for she hated it, and
the astonished faces of the kneeling apostles made her want to laugh.
No wonder they looked as if they wondered where the rest of the centre
figure was gone to--and yet she had an educated horror of irreverence.
Service, with the thermometer at 90° in the shade, however, was not at
best a success. The soldiers fidgeted, and stared out of window at the
palms, and Brissy Nugent pulled fretfully at his black moustache to
keep himself awake. When the mumbling old rector concluded his sermon
and the final hymn was given out, every one rose with relief, and high
above the defective choir rose the voice of Hamilton Gurney, who was
senior sub. of the Wessex, but was more remarkable for a tenor voice of
unusual compass and power.
“Praise God, from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him, all creatures here below,”
droned the organ; but Gurney’s voice, rising into the hot
rafters of the church, seemed the only real religion of the whole
ceremony.
“I wish I could have gone to sleep, as you did, Ally,” said Mrs. Lewin,
with frank regret, as they came out into the sunshine again. “I should
have felt that it had done me so much more good if I had.”
“Great Scot! the difficulty is _not_ to go to sleep, when that old
boy is meandering round about the Chronicles! It would be as much as
Lysle’s head was worth if he preached more than ten minutes. But he’s a
jolly good sort.”
“That’s that round-faced man who is regimental chaplain,” mused Chum.
“He always puts me in mind of a cherub out for a holiday.”
The Churtons joined them in the church porch, Diana in a holland habit
and white helmet, as near to khaki as might be. She annexed Ally with
the boldness of a woman accustomed to stalk her game in the open, and
Mrs. Lewin turned to the Major to mount her, in no wise disturbed.
They sat on their ponies for a minute to allow the men to pass, before
turning to the bridle path that made a short cut to Maitso, and as
the Wessex swung past her, Chum looked along the road taken by the
moving helmets, and saw a solitary horseman stopped in like manner to
themselves.
“Gregory’s Powder!” said Diana over her shoulder to those behind her.
Besides the Churtons’ and the Lewins’ ponies, the road was blocked by
Captain and Mrs. Gilderoy, an open cart belonging to the Denver girl,
and several other people and their modes of conveyance. As he came
full into a group that he knew, the Administrator per force stopped
and touched his helmet to the party. He looked more at his ease in the
saddle than in correct cloth at some Key’land function, as Mrs. Lewin
had hitherto met him, though he rode with a loose-limbed carelessness
that contrasted with the firm seats and carriage of the army men.
“How do you do, Mr. Gregory? Have you been to church in the open air?”
Di Churton called across the last of the retreating khaki figures.
“I do not go to church, except officially,” said the Administrator,
without any softening of the assertion. “It is getting hot for ladies
to be in the saddle, isn’t it?”
“Well, you should order the services earlier,” retorted Mrs.
Churton. “I suppose your authority might do something even in that
particular--officially! We are taking possession of your Secretary and
Mrs. Lewin, who are coming up to lunch with us.”
Something crossed the Administrator’s face--a gleam of satiric memory
to which Chum had not the key. But as his eyes met hers, and he saluted
again, she tried to hold them with an impersonal effort that had become
habit to her.
“Where is Mr. Halton this morning?” was what she happened to say with
a little smile, and she left her face, and her figure which was so at
ease with her pony, to do the rest.
The gleam in Gregory’s eyes became a silent laugh. “I don’t know--I
thought he was going to church,” he said drily; and then he made a
passing remark to Miss Denver and Mrs. Gilderoy, and rode away as if he
had done his duty.
“Tarred us all with the same brush--a sentence a-piece,” said Mrs.
Churton, with a loud laugh. “Come along, all of you; the sun is going
to be piping up the hill.”
She reined in her pony for an instant to allow Captain Lewin to
come abreast with her, and they began to climb up through the hill
plantations of guava and palm and mango, the flickering of the light
and shade touching the white riders and the dark ponies as they passed.
Ally looked young this morning in his cool linen, and Diana Churton
approved of youth. She was more than usually appropriative in her
manner, having reached that stage when, like a good cricketer, she had
got “set,” and could trust to her attack. Behind them rode Captain and
Mrs. Gilderoy, who were also lunching at the quarters of the O.C.T.,
and who had a devoted fashion of always riding with each other in
public. Captain Gilderoy was Garrison Adjutant, and Mrs. Lewin had
never met him at any social function, for he made his work an excuse to
evade the monotonous round he hated. His wife used to say that she had
worn out all excuses for his non-presence, and now told the truth--he
simply would not accompany her. Nevertheless, he knew the life of the
whole station, and commented upon it with a freedom and bitterness
which his hearers hardly realised on account of a very charming manner.
He could say ill-natured things in a deep sweet voice, that slipped
such poison into a hearer’s mind without any disagreeable taste at the
moment; but his rasping criticisms had made him the best-feared man in
the garrison. His wife added the grace of wit to her own backbiting,
and had a way of wrinkling up her face until her eyes were two dancing
slits, while she turned a harmless incident into a dangerously good
story. Together they had laughed away the reputations of half their
acquaintance, yet it was difficult to locate their mischief through the
light chatter that carried it.
Captain Gilderoy had struck Mrs. Lewin at first sight as an ugly man,
but his voice was so free from malice, that when she heard him speak
she thought she liked him. It was an impression she never wholly lost,
only when he smiled he reminded her of a snarling dog, and it put her
as instinctively on her guard as the actual animal would have done.
His wife was one of the few garrison ladies who were on friendly terms
with Diana Churton, partly because they clashed in no particular, and
partly because it was Mrs. Gilderoy’s policy not to quarrel. She was
an unobtrusive little person to look at, with a quick manner, and a
trick of saying apt things that Diana vaguely realised was attractive
to men, and valued accordingly. She only priced women’s gifts by their
effect on the opposite sex, and though Mrs. Gilderoy had no flesh and
blood pretensions, she had an odd attractiveness that increased with
her acquaintance. Mrs. Lewin had felt this already, in the few times
they had met, and was honestly glad that she was also lunching at the
Churtons’.
The rear of the party was the Officer in Command of the Troops and
Chum herself; but she rode with the bitterness of defeat upon her, so
that she was less conscious than usual of her companion. Major Churton,
for his part, was honestly admiring the beautiful curve of her figure
from shoulder to waist, and the lift at the corners of her lips. He
had found out already that Mrs. Lewin was easy to laugh with, and she
answered the rein of his fancy as perfectly as a horse with a good
mouth.
The air grew perceptibly fresher as they rose, but the climb was
steep, and both horses and riders bore signs of the heat when they
pulled up before the Churtons’ quarters. Two or three servants appeared
with noiseless swiftness to take the ponies, but Major Churton himself
lifted Chum out of her saddle as easily as if she were a child. He was
a man who loved his own strength. The party went on to the stoep, and
the men promptly augmented their racing blood with stimulant, after
the fashion of Englishmen. There is a particular drink in Key Island
which is called Cého,[1] and which is taken before or after meals, as
the fancy prescribes. It is not therefore the cocktail of the West
Indies, nor is it the “Whiskey-up” of Africa, or the highball of
America, or the universally styled “Drink” of England, which ranges
from simple beer to the last frenzy of liqueur. Cého is compounded
of many ingredients, but the old seasoned rum of the island is its
foundation, and strange juices from tropic plants go to make it an
evil thing. It is always iced, and generally precedes a whiskey and
soda, which it demands by reason of a tickled throat; but some men, and
these are hardened Planters, can take three or four céhos running in
preference to longer liqueur, and do not die--at once.
Ally and Captain Gilderoy took céhos, and Major Churton a whiskey and
soda, in which his wife followed suit. Mrs. Gilderoy declined and
was overruled, and Mrs. Lewin rose and poured out the last of the
soda-water for herself without adulteration.
“Do you really like it alone?” said Mrs. Gilderoy, looking up at the
tall figure. “Take care, Chum! my husband will jog your elbow.--Oh, I
am so sorry!” she broke off lightly. “But it comes so naturally to call
you that. It somehow suits you.”
“Do, if you like,” said Mrs. Lewin good-humouredly. “I expect we shall
all fall into the Christian-name stage eventually, so why not at once?
I am sure you all call my husband Ally Sloper--it is so appropriate!”
Every one glanced at Ally, tall and strong and triumphantly good to
look upon, and there was a general laugh.
“Ah, but Chum isn’t your name, and I know Captain Lewin calls you so!”
said Mrs. Gilderoy, with faint suggestion in her tone.
“Yes, from nursery days. Ally never has called me anything else but
Chum, because it amply defined the position. I don’t mind other people
using it a bit.”
Mrs. Gilderoy half closed her eyes, and looked up with a glitter of
laughter in them. “When you talk like that it sounds as if you had
married your brother!” she said.
But Mrs. Lewin’s smooth fair cheeks did not even flush. She was
chattering with Major Churton over a gymkana next week, and a pony
which she was to name.
“I think I shall call it ‘Key’land Gloom’!” she said. “It expresses the
mind of all the officials here so well. I have hardly heard any one
speak well of the place since I arrived.”
“Beastly hole!” said Di Churton loudly. “I wish they had sent Bute to
the West Coast, rather.”
“But that is a fever station!”
“Yes, and it’s better pay and better leave. I shouldn’t mind Sierra
Leone for a bit--a good many women have gone out.”
“I expect that will be my next job!” said Churton carelessly, as he set
down his empty glass. “It’s Paradise to this, anyway!”
“Oh, don’t talk of this! I hate Key Island, and everything in it. Have
a whiskey, Ally Sloper?” Di smiled at Mrs. Lewin to introduce the
nickname in public. Next time she would not take the trouble, while
further off still she would say Ally without reserve.
“Better not, Ally!” said Chum, laughing. “I shall have to carry you
home if you begin so early.”
“That’s the worst of cého!” said Captain Lewin apologetically, as
he filled another tumbler. “I say, Chum, what a sweet sight for the
Administrator if he met us tottering home arm in arm!”
“Speak for yourself! I’ve had soda.”
“Oh, the day is yet young!” said Major Churton. “You may yet catch him
up before tea, Mrs. Lewin!”
The whiskey and soda was finished, and Ally’s throat asked for another
by the time that luncheon was on the table. It was a light meal,
lightly relished, in a room that had more doors and windows than walls,
and of which the heavy scented flowers and the strange fruits seemed
as inevitably a part as the iced drinks. Chum had put Mr. Gregory
on one side, and was talking to Major Churton consciously. He was a
man who had been far and done hard things in strange lands, and she
read the lines of it in his face, from the great square forehead to
the self-reliant chin. It was not by any means a Sir Galahad type of
face--Tristram or Lancelot’s failings were more likely branded there;
but it was a soldier’s face for all that, and, despite the grey on his
thick, clipped head, he looked what she had called him--a man who would
be any woman’s master. Strength attracted Mrs. Lewin in whatever form
she met with it; she ignored the talk at the other end of the table,
which had drifted inevitably to stamps, and gave her attention to her
host.
“I am bent on mastering the intricacies of the sugar industry,”
she confided to him, while behind her shoulder she could hear Ally
comparing the many different shades of the Grenada and Barbadoes star
watermarked issues with Captain Gilderoy. “Is there a factory within my
reach?”
“Denver’s is the best. You know Denver, don’t you? He was a great man
in the old Company’s day, and is still on the Legislator. He has the
largest plantation this side the Pass, and it joins your ground on one
side. You ought to go over his factory, if you are really interested in
native industries.”
“I wonder why you all find that so hard to understand? Ever since I
arrived I have been met on all sides with weeping and lamentation, and
because I do not join in it I am counted a fraud. Key Island seems a
very possible centre of interest to me for the three years that one is
stationed here.”
“Wait till you have done your three years!” said Bute Churton, as he
handed her a cigarette. “I have had twenty years’ foreign service, Mrs.
Lewin, and I never wish to see a palm-tree again once I get quit of
this. Give me solid English comfort!”
“Most people’s idea of solid English comfort, and ‘Home, sweet home,’
consists in early Victorian furniture and all the meals an hour later
on Sunday!” said Chum. “It gives me indigestion.”
“Oh, but that is the ‘Home, sweet home’ of one’s relations and old
family friends--the sort of people that one only thinks about at
Christmas and on their birthdays, in fact.”
“No!” said Chum, firmly; “I never remember people’s birthdays on
principle. Sooner or later it is bound to degenerate into rudeness.”
“That reminds me that there is a birthday dinner party threatening us
next week, anyhow. Old Arthur White met me in the club and told me he
was sixty next Thursday. They have a feed on at the Harrac. Are you
going?”
“Yes, I believe so. Mr. Halton tells me that Harrac is one of the few
houses where they know how to cook flying-fish, and you can trust to
the Bridge being sound.”
“‘Bridge’ is not my game, though I play it,” said the Major, with
unconscious self-revelation. “I like ‘Poker’--one is on one’s own
there. I prefer to trust to myself.”
Chum looked at his line of chin and forehead, and smiled. For a minute
she wondered what it would be like to have a husband who preferred
to trust to himself. Ally so infinitely preferred to leave the final
decision to her! It sounded rather restful, and she glanced round half
curiously at the man with whom she had linked her own fate--and power
of making up her mind--to find him seriously arguing with Captain
Gilderoy that the Saint Lucia twopence halfpenny crown C. C. would rise
in the market now that Queen’s heads were becoming scarce. It seemed he
could really concentrate his thoughts and energies on a hobby, anyway.
She caught the beautiful curve of his earnest face with simple artistic
pleasure, and then found Mrs. Churton waiting to make a move from the
table.
“Have you finished your smoke, Chum?” she said carelessly as she rose.
“Come into my room and freshen up. The men are good for more whiskey
yet.”
“I hope not!” said Chum, with a half-resigned, half-protesting glance
at Ally, which slid harmlessly over his bent head and was lost among
the shades of the Canadian two-cent map stamp.
“Didn’t I hear you talking about Denvers?” said Mrs. Gilderoy, as
the three women entered Mrs. Churton’s room and drifted by mutual
attraction towards the looking-glass. “You heard how Trixie Denver
behaved at our house the other night?”
“Yes. Brissy--Captain Nugent--told me this morning through the
telephone.” She thought of Ally’s prophecy, that Mrs. Gilderoy would
make a story out of the incident, and waited with a smile somewhere
hidden in her eyes.
“Oh, my dear, we had an awful time! My good man took a lantern and went
to find them at last, for they had been out there simply hours! I told
him he had better be careful how he turned it on--it was one of those
electric things, you know. But he flashed it straight into the dark
corners, and discovered them, to the mutual embarrassment of all three!”
“If some one doesn’t look after that girl she’ll come to grief!” said
Mrs. Churton scornfully. “Since she has taken up with the Clayton woman
she has been nothing but a camp follower.”
“Who is Mrs. Clayton?” said Chum, with some curiosity, but more of a
desire to shift the talk from a girl’s name. She did not care for Miss
Denver, who offended her taste and vision alike; but Diana’s comments
were nearly as jarring.
“They are A.S.C. people--they have quarters at Mitsinjovy. She’s the
woman who was at Mrs. White’s the other night in green. You could not
have missed seeing her!”
“But I was not there. Does she dress so oddly?”
“She has one garment that every one speculates over. I fancy it began
life as a nightgown, but she always wears it on unofficial evenings!”
“Be charitable, and put it down to the heat! Ally would live in
pyjamas, if I would let him. What is Mrs. Clayton’s garment like?
Perhaps I might adapt my own nightdresses--with a sash!”
“Well,” said Mrs. Gilderoy thoughtfully, “I don’t quite know how to
describe it--do you, Di? But if a bathing dress had a--a flirtation
with a kimono, Eva Clayton’s garment might be the result! I can’t see
how it would be obtained otherwise. It is certainly a hybrid!”
Her eyes became mere slits of laughter, and Mrs. Lewin laughed too,
with soft, full enjoyment.
“I shall look out for Mrs. Clayton,” said she. “She is out at By-Jovey,
is she? I love that name for the Gunners’ Hill!”
“Yes, and Trixie Denver goes over there half her time, and she and
Mrs. Clayton sit on the steps of the Gunnery,--on the men’s knees, I
believe, as soon as it gets dark.”
“I wonder they wait for that!” said Diana scornfully. “What did
Captain Gilderoy find Gurney doing with Trixie?”
“They were on the Jacksons’ stoep--their quarters join ours, you know.
Wray says that Trixie was draped round Gurney’s neck, and he looked a
perfect fool. We were furious, of course, as the girl was dining at our
house, and in our care for the time, at least. Wray spoke to Gurney
pretty plainly, and told him that unless he meant to marry her, he had
better behave decently when she was with us.”
“It is her fault, not Gurney’s,” asserted Diana, sacrificing the woman
to the man with the instinct of her class. For she was a “man’s woman,”
and would see no wrong in the sex. “What did he say?”
“Oh, he wriggled out of it--said he couldn’t afford to marry. It is
rather a pity for the girl, don’t you think?” Her eyes glanced at Chum
in the looking-glass, where she was powdering her face. Mrs. Lewin
stood behind her, her taller stature enabling her to see over the
little woman’s head, while she watched a trifle satirically to see Mrs.
Gilderoy wet her finger with her lips and draw it across her lashes.
“Wretchedly large puffs you have, Di!” she said calmly. “One’s eyes
always catch the powder and give it away.”
“It’s not a thing I use at all,” Di Churton boasted, passing her
handkerchief over her burnt and oozing skin. “How are you getting on
with your housekeeping, Chum? I forgot to ask you.”
“Very well, thanks to Abdallah. I must confess he does more towards it
than I.”
“Oh, you’ve got Abdallah? I hate Arabs myself. We’ve Malagasy and
natives. Your servants sleep on the stoep, of course?”
“I don’t know,” said Chum, laughing. “It’s their own fault if they do.
There are servants’ quarters.”
“I bet you five to one they sleep on the stoep, and bring their women
there too!”
“That goes without saying,” said Mrs. Gilderoy, relinquishing the
powder puff for a manicure case. Whatever were Diana Churton’s other
drawbacks her hands were always immaculate. “When we had Arabs I never
could go out after the house was shut up, or I fell over them on the
doorstep, and--and it embarrassed me!”
“Brutes!” said Chum disgustedly. Her eyes grew stormy, and a beautiful
red colour came into her cheeks, that were usually rather pale. “I will
turn them out one and all, if that is the case.”
“Don’t be such a fool!” said Mrs. Churton scornfully. “If they are good
servants, keep them. What on earth does it matter what they do? All the
coloured people are alike--only animals.”
She did not see that her broad judgment might apply to white races
also, though later she went back to the stoep and her contemplation
of Alaric Lewin. There was a certain grave dark beauty in Ally’s face
which was deceptive, because at the moment he was merely rather sleepy;
but when the Lewins mounted their ponies again for the ride home in the
short twilight, Mrs. Churton strolled over to Ally and laid her hand on
the neck of his mount.
“If you can come up some time with your duplicates I’ll make a fair
exchange with you, for some of those Sydney Views you have,” she said.
Stamps are an innocent and mutual hobby. Mrs. Lewin did not collect.
“Thanks, awfully!” said Ally. The last whiskey that had been pressed
on him at parting made him feel that Di Churton was really a good sort
of pal to have, and he moved the reins.... Di’s hands were cool and
soft to touch.
“Ally, I’m half-way home!” called Chum, laughing, as she steered
Liscarton down the steep road.
The man gathered up his reins and rode after his wife, his hand
delicately conscious of a soft touch still.
The woman turned back to the house, wondering if any one had seen.
Nobody thought of the Arabs on the stoep--but even such courtship as
theirs must have a beginning.